House Arrest: Pandemic Diaries

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Although this is a diary, Bennett doesn’t really say how he spends his days – staring out of the window, presumably, and remembering the past. He talks about the year his family spent in Guildford just after the war, where they noticed that the fish and chip shops used oil instead of beef dripping. “To us the oil smelled disgusting and was yet another score on which ‘down south’ proved a disappointment.”

House Arrest: Pandemic Diaries by Alan Bennett review

Condition: Very Good. Very Good condition. Shows only minor signs of wear, and very minimal markings inside (if any). Bought today and have no idea when this was published but it feels just like sitting with Alan Bennett for a chat. Never seen this before and within an hour I have found another delight in his writing.

Footnotes

Whately, as care minister, warned that restrictions on visitors to care homes at the time were “inhumane”. October. One casualty of Covid (and I don’t think it’s age) has been chronology. These days I’m often confused by what day it is, not to mention the date. Keeping the diary has been a different sort of casualty as politics became difficult to ignore and Boris Johnson tedious to chronicle. By the time I’d got round to Liz Truss she’d gone. Though this annual bulletin has never tried to be other than serendipitous, this year’s instalment seems particularly patchy while being a fair representation of my routine. The largest segment is occasioned by the death of HM the Queen. Some years ago I was one of several writers asked by Radio 4 to record their thoughts on Her Majesty’s eventual death. When earlier this year the broadcast became relevant I didn’t hear it, leading me to think it might not have been considered appropriate. Happily, I was wrong and the talk did go out but I thought it was worth repeating here. Many prospective readers are likely to have enjoyed previous volumes of Bennett diaries and once again this one, though slight, will not disappoint. One of the pleasures and indeed consolations of a memorial service is in looking round to see who’s there, not something that’s possible on Zoom. So, ideally it should be a roving Zoom. Not, I’m sure, that Geoffrey would have thought he was worth the trouble. March. HMQ pictured in the paper at an investiture wearing gloves, presumably as a precaution against Coronavirus. But not just gloves; these are almost gauntlets. I hope they're not the thin end of a precautionary wedge lest Her Majesty end up swathed in protective get-up such as is worn at the average crime scene.

Alan Bennett · Diary: On failing to impress the queen · LRB 5

She was a great woman, her performance of Let’s Do It at the Albert Hall the stuff of legend. I just hope Noël Coward was still around to see it. I first met her, almost epically, in Sainsbury’s in Lancaster at the avocado counter. Her Dinnerladies was often sentimental, but she caught in the part of the handyman, played by Duncan Preston, the idiom of an old-fashioned working-class man, elaborate, literate and language-loving, which is, or was, more typical of the north than the more cliched dialect-rich versions.

Condition: Very Good. Used book that is in excellent condition. May show signs of wear or have minor defects. Referring to the knighthood graciously awarded to the former Artistic Director of the National Theatre, one inevitably wonders why, despite his antipathy to the current prime minister counterbalanced by a love of the Queen, this review is not being written about the efforts of Sir Alan Bennett or even Lord Bennett? However, it added that the saga raised “questions around the conditions on which departing members of government retain and subsequently use official information which need to be considered by organisations such as the Cabinet Office”. It is filled with wise and often witty observations drawing on a lifetime of cultural interests, often alluding to the author’s stage and TV work but stretching much further afield.

House Arrest: Pandemic Diaries by Alan Bennett | Goodreads

Our national treasure at work during the pandemic – sharing his everyday thoughts, alongside his increasing physical infirmities, in his own inimitable way. Warm, human and open, usually with a nonchalant air. As captivating as always. Something in the day sparks a reminiscence and he wanders off tangentially – how I relate to that! It’s always been assumed that the late queen didn’t much like the theatre, which can’t be said of her successor, who’s often to be found at plays, and if it’s a comedy, far from dampening down an audience, Charles’s presence and his loud laughter help to get them going.

First night reviews

Thanks to arthritis I’m now much less mobile than I was. Gone are the days when I could jump on my bike to pop down to the shops, so static semi-isolation is scarcely a hardship or even a disruption of my routine. Himself no slouch when it came to work, George Steiner once asked a Soviet dissident how he got through so much. “House arrest, Steiner. House arrest.” Alas, so far as work is concerned, I haven’t yet noticed much difference. So hot that even the gulls have fallen silent. At 92A (Dad’s butcher’s shop in Otley Road in Headingley) he had an antiquated fridge which ran on a fan belt. In hot weather the belt overheated, just at the time when, should the fridge break down, bankruptcy threatened. With the fridge full of turkeys, Christmas was another perilous period. August, Yorkshire. Write it and it happens. In the monologue The Shrine I wrote for production during Covid, a biker travelling down the A65 dies in a crash and I imagined incurious sheep gathering to look at the scene of the accident. Venice is the only city I’ve been in, with the possible exception of Cambridge, where there was nothing to offend the eye, and going in winter as I did in those days one would find the Piazza San Marco empty. It was at the Accademia with its thin walls that I first overheard sexual intercourse, and the shout of a man coming, ‘Vengo! Vengo!’